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Rich Pauloo, PhD

View this CV online with links at richpauloo.com/cv

Contact

Foreign Language Skills

Conversational Spanish

Language Skills

R
SQL
Python
Bash
JS/HTML/CSS



Disclaimer

Made with pagedown in R.

The source code is available at github.com/richpauloo/cv.

Last updated on 2021-08-05.

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Rich Pauloo, PhD

I’m a data scientist with a background in physical science (hydrology, fluid mechanics, geology, statistical methods, optimization, geospatial science), computing (sensor networks, cloud computing, open source software development), and physics (mathematical and numerical modeling, contaminant transport).

I have coded workflows to automate ETL jobs from from hundreds of remote sensor networks1; built dashboards and interactive data visualizations to bring clarity to datasets with millions of observations2; created 3D numerical physical simulation models of groundwater flow and contaminant transport3; explored ways to improve machine learning interpretability4; built R packages5; won an AI for Earth Grant to model the risk of domestic wells going dry in California’s Central Valley6; and developed R data science curriculum7.

Education

PhD, Hydrogeology

University of California Davis

Davis, CA

2020 - 2015

  • Published 5 scientific papers (3 first-author), see “Publications”.
  • Won ~$153,000 in national, compeitive grants and awards from NASA, Microsoft AI for Earth, AGU, and others (see “Grants and Awards”).

B.S., Integrative Biology (minor in Conflict Resolution)

University of California Berkeley

Berkeley, CA

2011 - 2006

  • Delivered departmental commencement speech8 to ~ 5,000 people.



Professional & Research Experience

Data Scientist + Hydrologist

Larry Walker Associates

Berkeley, CA

present - 2020

  • Programmed automated ETL pipelines for ~180 real-time sensor networks and dashboards.
  • Managed multiple six-figure contracts, scoped work, contributed to strategic marketing, and trained staff.
  • Frequent client communication in diverse groups with competing aims.
  • Ad hoc geostatistics, hydrologic modeling, remote sensing.

Data Scientist + Co-Founder

Water Data Lab

Remote

present - 2020

  • Currently manage $105k in contracts.
  • Build ETL pipeline and design strategic approach.
  • Co-developed r4wrds.com

Data Engineer

UC Water

Davis, CA

2020 - 2018

  • Built a data processing pipeline and web dashboard9 for real-time groundwater data via a wireless sensor network. View paper10.

Graduate Student Researcher

Fogg Lab

UC Davis

2020 - 2015

  • Process large hydrologic datasets, 3D numerical groundwater flow and contaminant transport models, & network optimization models.
  • Developed novel models of well failure, groundwater salinization, and contaminant transport in porous media.
  • Regularly use R, Python, Git, Bash, MODFLOW, RW3D, Paraview, Illustrator, AWS, Linux, ArcGIS, Envi, LaTeX.

Data Lab Researcher

Computational Institute for Geodynamics (CIG)

UC Davis

2019 - 2018

  • NLP, text mining, and network analysis in R on a corpus of ~600 PDFs.
  • Developed an R Shiny dashboard11 to understand the corpus.
  • Results published here12.



Teaching & Leadership Experience

Before pursuing my PhD, I spent 3 years teaching diverse audiences in environmental education. I worked in Yosemite, Thailand and the Marin Headlands, and honed skills in public speaking, interpersonal team development, group facilitation, and critical listening. Living with my coworkers in tight teams taught me patience and cooperation. During summers I guided expeditions in the wilderness and abroad with National Geographic.

Expedition Leader

National Geographic & Adventures Cross Country

Thailand

2016 - 2015

  • Coordinated all aspects of multi-week international travel.
  • Facilitated teambuilding, group dynamics, and cultural integration.

Site Manager & Educator/Guide

NatureBridge

Yosemite & the Marin Headlands, CA

2015 - 2013

  • Coordinated with Operations to run a 200-student, 60 employee campus, which involved frequent public speaking.
  • Lived and worked with a close team.
  • Trained in wilderness guiding and backcountry safety.
  • Served as primary liaison between the organization and clients.

Environmental Science Educator

San Mateo County Office of Education

La Honda, CA

2013 - 2012

  • Designed cirriculum & taught science to diverse students.
  • Worked and lived with a close team of educators.
  • Frequent improvisational public speaking to large audiences.



Grants and Awards

Microsoft AI for Earth (national)

$37,571

N/A

2020

  • gspdrywells.com13, AI-enabled forecasting of domestic well failure.

AGU Outstanding Student Presentation (national)

$200 and free 2020 registration

N/A

2019

  • Awarded to the top 3-5% of presenters. View presentation14.

2019 California Water Data Challenge (statewide)

$1,500

N/A

2019

  • Created calwaterquality.com15, a statewide data portal that integrates and visualizes massive water quality data sets, and auto-generates water quality reports for more than 2,000 California public water systems.
  • Blog post16 about the project summarizing my motivation.

NASA Data Visualization Competition (national)

$1,400

N/A

2018

  • Machine learning for domestic well failure17.

2018 California Water Data Challenge (statewide)

$1,500

N/A

2018

  • Used large state databases to build and calibrate a predictive model18 of domestic well failure in California’s Central Valley.

NSF-GRFP Honorable Mention (national)

N/A

N/A

2016

NSF-IGERT in Climate Change, Water and Society (national)

$111,000

N/A

2015



Selected Publications, Posters, and Talks

Mean flow direction modulates non-Fickian transport in a heterogeneous alluvial aquifer-aquitard system19

Water Resources Research, 10.1029/2020WR028655

N/A

2021

  • Pauloo, R. & Fogg, G.E. & Guo, Z. & Harter, T.

Development of a remote sensing based method to estimate changes in groundwater storage

Water Resources Research (in review)

N/A

2020

  • Ahmed, A. & Pauloo, R. & Knight, R. & Melton, F.

A low cost, open source wireless sensor network for real-time groundwater monitoring20

Water, 10.3390/w12041066

N/A

2020

  • Calderwood, A. & Pauloo, R. & Yoder, A. & Fogg, G.E.

Domestic Well Vulnerability to Drought Duration and Unsustainable Groundwater Management in California’s Central Valley21

Environmental Research Letters, 10.1088/1748-9326/ab6f10

N/A

2020

  • Pauloo, R. & Dahlke, H. & Escriva-Bou, A. & Fencl, A. & Guillon, H. & Fogg, G.E.

Anthropogenic Basin Closure and Groundwater SALinization (ABCSAL)22

Journal of Hydrology, 10.1016/j.jhydrol.2020.125787

N/A

2020

  • Pauloo, R. & Fogg, G.E. & Guo, Z. & Harter, T.

Assessing Impact of Outreach through Software Citation for Community Software in Geodynamics23

Computing in Science & Engineering, 10.1109/MCSE.2019.2940221

N/A

2019

  • Hwang, L. & Pauloo, R. & Carlen, J.

Show me the Data24

California Water Data Summit

Davis, CA

2019

  • Pauloo, R.

An Overview of Domestic Well Vulnerability in California’s Central Valley: Opportunities for Informed Risk Assessment25

California Environmental Protection Agency

Sacramento, CA

2019

  • Pauloo, R.

Hydraulic gradients modulate non-Fickian transport in heterogeneous porous media26

American Geophysical Union

San Francisco, CA

2019

  • Pauloo, R. & Fogg, G.E. & Guo, Z. & Henri, C.V.

Anthropogenic Basin Closure and Groundwater Salinization27

Chapman Conference on Aquifer Sustainability

Valencia, Spain

2019

  • Pauloo, R. & Fogg, G.E. & Guo, Z. & Harter, T.

An Interactive Mapping Interface to the California Online State Well Completion Report Database28

UC Water Annual Meeting

Sacramento, CA

2018

  • Pauloo, R.

Selected Data Science Writing

Install RStudio Server on Microsoft Azure30

N/A

N/A

2020

Automating R scripts on Linux with cron31

N/A

N/A

2020

Using Twilio to Text Myself After Long Running Jobs32

N/A

N/A

2019

Race to the Bottom33

Exploratory data analysis and science journalism California well construction trends.

N/A

2019

Text Analysis of the Mueller Report34

Text mining and sentiment analysis.

N/A

2019

Installing the R kernel in Jupyter Lab35

How-to guide visited ~2,000 times per month.

N/A

2018

Tidy Chi Squared stats in infer36

N/A

N/A

2018

View all of my blog posts here.



Certifications

Wilderness First Responder

N/A

National Outdoor Leadership School

N/A

Software Carpentry Instructor

N/A

Software Carpentry

N/A